History Affairs

Class and Superstition in British History

Back in the day, believing in ghosts didn’t really show your social status until the 1820s when the educated folks started to convince everyone else that these sightings were just tricks of the mind.

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You’d think that education would lead to more rational thinking and make people less superstitious. So, it seems logical that the educated classes in Britain gradually stopped believing in things like witches, ghosts, and fairies while the average person took their time catching up. But historian Thomas Waters points out that’s not quite the case. He argues that elites suddenly turned against “popular superstitions” in the early Victorian era due to specific historical events.

In the 1730s, Parliament got rid of laws against witchcraft but swapped them for prohibitions on fake magical powers. However, Waters claims that for nearly a hundred years after that, many educated Brits from the middle and upper classes still openly acknowledged their belief in ghosts and witchcraft. Even during the 1810s, there were plenty of instances where clergymen and aristocrats showed real concern over supernatural happenings.

Waters notes, “It wasn’t until the 1820s and 1830s that believing in witchcraft, ghosts, and divination became seen as scandalous.”

During the 1820s, the term “popular superstition” started to pop up, implying that magical beliefs were mainly held by those who weren’t educated. Newspapers expressed shock over instances of anti-witch violence and urged clergymen and other respected figures to intervene. A new type of public lecture emerged where educated experts would debunk ghost stories and other superstitions. Book critics often slammed collections of ghost tales unless they clearly disproved the stories.

Antiquarians began delving into fairy tales, ghost stories, and various magical customs, aiming to show the public these superstitions as cultural relics while trying to dissuade belief in them. This often involved explaining the psychological and natural reasons behind ghostly encounters. One scholar even criticized the tradition of making hot-cross buns on Good Friday for luck, claiming it was “clearly a leftover from superstition and should be done away with.”

So, why did all this happen then? Waters suggests that one reason was the newspapers extending their reach beyond just the elite audiences they catered to in the 1700s. They were on the lookout for sensational topics while also wanting to portray themselves as rational, credible sources of news.

Waters writes, “Stories about the wild antics of witch believers mixed with a bit of critical commentary fit that need perfectly.”

Overall, during the 1820s and ’30s, many middle- and upper-class people watched uneasily as the working class resisted harsh labor conditions, protested poor laws, and pushed for more political rights. The focus on “popular superstition” highlighted the necessity for education to align public opinion with the “rational” views of the elites.

As circumstances shifted, Waters observes, animosity towards superstition eased. In the later Victorian times, Spiritualism became a more accepted way to believe in ghosts. By the early 1900s, courts were less likely to take action against fortune tellers, ghost stories didn’t have to be disguised as debunkings anymore, and newspapers that used to pride themselves on opposing supernatural beliefs started publishing horoscopes.

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